Download or read book The Great Kant Earthquake and the Chimera of National Reconstruction in Japan written by J. Charles Schencking and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-02 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1923, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated eastern Japan, killing more than 120,000 people and leaving two million homeless. Using a rich array of source material, J. Charles Schencking tells for the first time the graphic tale of Tokyo's destruction and rebirth. In emotive prose, he documents how the citizens of Tokyo experienced this unprecedented calamity and explores the ways in which it rattled people's deep-seated anxieties about modernity. While explaining how and why the disaster compelled people to reflect on Japanese society, he also examines how reconstruction encouraged the capital's inhabitants to entertain new types of urbanism as they rebuilt their world. Some residents hoped that a grandiose metropolis, reflecting new values, would rise from the ashes of disaster-ravaged Tokyo. Many, however, desired a quick return of the city they once called home. Opportunistic elites advocated innovative state infrastructure to better manage the daily lives of Tokyo residents. Others focused on rejuvenating society—morally, economically, and spiritually—to combat the perceived degeneration of Japan. Schencking explores the inspiration behind these dreams and the extent to which they were realized. He investigates why Japanese citizens from all walks of life responded to overtures for renewal with varying degrees of acceptance, ambivalence, and resistance. His research not only sheds light on Japan's experience with and interpretation of the earthquake but challenges widespread assumptions that disasters unite stricken societies, creating a "blank slate" for radical transformation. National reconstruction in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, Schencking demonstrates, proved to be illusive.
Download or read book The Great Kanto Earthquake and the Chimera of National Reconstruction in Japan written by J. Charles Schenking and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 1923, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated eastern Japan, killing more than 120,000 people and leaving two million homeless. Using a rich array of source material, J. Charles Schencking tells for the first time the graphic tale of Tokyo's destruction and rebirth. In emotive prose, he documents how the citizens of Tokyo experienced this unprecedented calamity and explores the ways in which it rattled people's deep-seated anxieties about modernity. While explaining how and why the disaster compelled people to reflect on Japanese society, he also examines how reconstruction encouraged the capital's inhabitants to entertain new types of urbanism as they rebuilt their world. Some residents hoped that a grandiose metropolis, reflecting new values, would rise from the ashes of disaster-ravaged Tokyo. Many, however, desired a quick return of the city they once called home. Opportunistic elites advocated innovative state infrastructure to better manage the daily lives of Tokyo residents. Others focused on rejuvenating society--morally, economically, and spiritually--to combat the perceived degeneration of Japan. Schencking explores the inspiration behind these dreams and the extent to which they were realized. He investigates why Japanese citizens from all walks of life responded to overtures for renewal with varying degrees of acceptance, ambivalence, and resistance. His research not only sheds light on Japan's experience with and interpretation of the earthquake but challenges widespread assumptions that disasters unite stricken societies, creating a "blank slate" for radical transformation. National reconstruction in the wake of the Great Kanto Earthquake, Schencking demonstrates, proved to be illusive.
Download or read book Imaging Disaster written by Gennifer Weisenfeld and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2012-11-14 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on one landmark catastrophic event in the history of an emerging modern nation—the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo and surrounding areas in 1923—this fascinating volume examines the history of the visual production of the disaster. The Kanto earthquake triggered cultural responses that ran the gamut from voyeuristic and macabre thrill to the romantic sublime, media spectacle to sacred space, mournful commemoration to emancipatory euphoria, and national solidarity to racist vigilantism and sociopolitical critique. Looking at photography, cinema, painting, postcards, sketching, urban planning, and even scientific visualizations, Weisenfeld demonstrates how visual culture has powerfully mediated the evolving historical understanding of this major national disaster, ultimately enfolding mourning and memory into modernization.
Download or read book The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake written by Charles River Charles River Editors and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2018-02-02 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes accounts of the earthquake and subsequent fires by survivors *Includes a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents Of the numerous disasters, both natural and man-made, to strike Japan during the 20th century, the Great Kanto Earthquake was among the worst, and the most significant. The massive earthquake struck the Japanese capital region, including the cities of Tokyo and Yokohama, shortly before noon on Saturday, September 1, 1923, causing immense physical destruction. Buildings collapsed, crushing their occupants, and a tsunami assaulted miles of coastline, depositing boats well inland and dragging people, structures, and debris out to sea. In both Tokyo and Yokohama, the tremors set off firestorms that raged for days across the dense, wooden cityscapes. In all, the earthquake left perhaps 140,000 dead and more than 2 million homeless, transforming East Asia's most prosperous and modern urban area into a scorched, burned-out wasteland. On the day of the earthquake, according to the Buddhist figure Takashima Beiho, "Nature raged all at once, collapsing the pillars of the sky and snapping the axis of the earth. The big city of Tokyo, the largest in the Orient, at the zenith of its prosperity, burned down and melted away over two days and three nights." Together, the earthquake and firestorm killed somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000, left more than a million homeless, and destroyed billions of yen worth of property. The best estimates are that up to 75% of all buildings in Tokyo were destroyed or seriously damaged, and while all of Tokyo was afflicted, the low city especially suffered. The five city wards in which damage was greatest (90% or more) were all located in the low city. The proud neighborhoods around Nihonbashi and Kyobashi were particularly gutted, and many symbols of the Mieji-era shitamachi, such as the original Shinbashi Station, the Mitsukoshi Department Store, the Asakusa Twelve-Stories, were destroyed in the conflagration. A few other emblematic buildings survived, most notably the Asakusa Kannon and, famously, Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel, but the earthquake truly marked the beginning of the end of the low city's preeminence as a center for culture and entertainment. Of course, the significance of the Great Kanto Earthquake was not restricted to the material destruction it caused. In the immediate wake of the disaster, anarchy reigned through the streets of Tokyo, and before the last of the firestorms had even been extinguished, panicked residents spread rumors and gathered into armed vigilante groups, ultimately leading to thousands of deaths by mob violence. Police and municipal authorities found themselves powerless in the face of this chaos, and order was only restored when the Japanese government declared martial law and sent in the army to occupy the nation's own capital. Thus, the unrest following the Great Kanto Earthquake served at once to exacerbate tensions between Japan and its Korean colony, and it also burnished the reputation of the Japanese military as the one national institution upon which a troubled people could depend in a time of crisis. These developments would ultimately serve the nation poorly as it headed towards World War II. The 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake: The History and Legacy of the Earthquake That Destroyed Tokyo chronicles the earthquake and its aftermath. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about the earthquake like never before, in no time at all.
Download or read book The Culture of the Quake written by Alex Bates and published by U of M Center for Japanese Studies. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of Taishō-era narrative fiction
Download or read book Perspectives on Environmental History in East Asia written by Ts'ui-jung Liu and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume engages with some of the most dynamic themes in current research on East Asian environmental history, including agricultural science, war and the environment, imperial forestry, oceanic history, and the history of energy. Chapters in this book supply an overview of environmental history as a rapidly expanding field, continuing to generate valuable insights into the mutually constitutive relationship between human societies and the biophysical environment. The book is divided into three parts: Part I consists of three chapters related to land use, while Part II includes five chapters that focus on water, a topic of perennial concern among environmental historians of East Asia, especially as it relates to irrigation, food production, and marine fisheries. Part III consists of two chapters, discussing the impact of new technologies on air quality, in addition to the history of energy in East Asia, which has emerged as an important area of inquiry at the intersection between both environmental history and the history of science and technology. Perspectives on Environmental History in East Asia: Changes in the Land, Water, and Air will appeal to students and scholars of East Asian studies, environmental history, and environmental sciences.
Download or read book Pan Asianism and Japan s War 1931 1945 written by E. Hotta and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-12-25 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores the critical importance of Pan-Asianism in Japanese imperialism. Pan-Asianism was a cultural as well as political ideology that promoted Asian unity and recognition. The focus is on Pan-Asianism as a propeller behind Japan's expansionist policies from the Manchurian Incident until the end of the Pacific War.
Download or read book Transnational Nazism written by Ricky W. Law and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first English-language study of German-Japanese interwar relations to employ sources in both languages.
Download or read book The Era of Great Disasters written by Makoto Iokibe and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-09-25 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Era of Great Disasters examines modern disaster response in Japan, from the changing earthquake preparations and regulations, to immediate emergency procedures from the national, prefectural, and city levels, and finally the evolving efforts of rebuilding and preparing for the next great disaster in the hopes of minimizing their tragic effects. This book focuses on three major earthquakes from Japan’s modern history. The first is the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake, which struck the capital region. The second is the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, affecting the area between Kobe and Osaka. The third is the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, the magnitude 9.0 quake that struck off the Pacific coast of the Tohoku region, causing a devastating tsunami and nuclear accident. While the events of (and around) each of these earthquakes are unique, Professor Iokibe brings his deep expertise and personal experience to each disaster, unveiling not only the disasters themselves but the humanity underneath. In each case, he gives attention and gratitude to those who labored to save lives and restore the communities affected, from the individuals on the scene to government officials and military personnel and emergency responders, in the hope that we might learn from the past and move forward with greater wisdom, knowledge, and common purpose.
Download or read book Pyrotechnic Cities written by Liam Ross and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-06-24 with total page 239 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the relationship between architecture, government and fire. It posits that, through the question of fire-safety standardisation, building design comes to be both a problem for, and a tool of, government. Through a close study of fire-safety standards it demonstrates the shaping effect that architecture and the city have on the way we think about governing. Opening with an investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire and the political actors who sought to enrol it in programmes of governmental reform before contextualising the research in current literature, the book takes four city studies, each beginning with a specific historic fire: The 1654 Great Fire of Meirecki, Edo; the 1877 town fire of Lagos; the 1911 Empire Palace Theatre fire, Edinburgh; and the 2001 World Trade Centre attack, New York. Each study identifies the governmental response to the fire, safety standards and codes designed in its wake and how these new processes spread and change. Drawing on the work of sociologists John Law and Anne Marie Mol and their concept of ‘Fire Space’, it describes the way that architectural design, through the medium of fire, is an instrument of political agency. Pyrotechnic Cities is a critical investigation into these political implications, written for academics, researchers and students in architectural history and theory, infrastructure studies and governance.
Download or read book Monster of the Twentieth Century written by Robert Thomas Tierney and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-06-09 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This extended monograph examines the work of the radical journalist Kotoku Shusui and Japan’s anti-imperialist movement of the early twentieth century. It includes the first English translation of Imperialism (Teikokushugi), Kotoku’s classic 1901 work. Kotoku Shusui was a Japanese socialist, anarchist, and critic of Japan’s imperial expansionism who was executed in 1911 for his alleged participation in a plot to kill the emperor. His Imperialism was one of the first systematic criticisms of imperialism published anywhere in the world. In this seminal text, Kotoku condemned global imperialism as the commandeering of politics by national elites and denounced patriotism and militarism as the principal causes of imperialism. In addition to translating Imperialism, Robert Tierney offers an in-depth study of Kotoku’s text and of the early anti-imperialist movement he led. Tierney places Kotoku’s book within the broader context of early twentieth-century debates on the nature and causes of imperialism. He also presents a detailed account of the different stages of the Japanese anti-imperialist movement. Monster of the Twentieth Century constitutes a major contribution to the intellectual history of modern Japan and to the comparative study of critiques of capitalism and colonialism.
Download or read book Disaster s Impact on Livelihood and Cultural Survival written by Michele Companion and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many facets of disasters generate interest among scholars and practitioners. However, a vital area of disaster research is consistently underemphasized. Little is written about the immediate and long-term impacts on a community‘s livelihood systems and the customs and practices of the culture affected. Disaster‘s Impact on Livelihood and Cultural S
Download or read book East Asian International Relations in History written by Kyu-hyun Jo and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Disasters and Social Crisis in Contemporary Japan written by Mark R. Mullins and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan was shaken by the 'double disaster' of earthquake and sarin gas attack in 1995, and in 2011 it was hit once again by the 'triple disaster' of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. This international, multi-disciplinary group of scholars examines the state and societal responses to the disasters and social crisis.
Download or read book Aid to Armenia written by Joanne Laycock and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interventions on behalf of Armenia and Armenians have come to be identified by scholars and practitioners alike as defining moments in the history of humanitarianism. This volume reassesses these claims, critically examining a range of interventions by governments, international and diasporic organizations, and individuals that aimed to ‘save Armenians’. Drawing on perspectives from a range of disciplines, the chapters trace the evolution of these interventions from the late-nineteenth to the present day, paying particular attention to the aftermaths of the genocide and the upheavals of the post-Soviet period. Geographically, the contributions connect diverse spaces and places – the Caucasus, Russia, the Middle East, Europe, North America, South America, and Australia – revealing shifting transnational networks of aid and intervention. These chapters are followed by reflections from leading scholars in the fields of refugee history and Armenian history, Peter Gatrell and Ronald Grigor Suny. Aid to Armenia not only offers an innovative exploration into the history of Armenia and Armenians and the history of humanitarianism, but it provides a platform for practitioners to think critically about contemporary humanitarian questions facing Armenia, the South Caucasus region and the wider Armenian diaspora.
Download or read book The Disaster Profiteers written by John C. Mutter and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Natural disasters don't matter for the reasons we think they do. They generally don't kill a huge number of people. Most years more people kill themselves than are killed by Nature's tantrums. And using standard measures like Gross Domestic Product (GDP) it is difficult to show that disasters significantly interrupt the economy. It's what happens after the disasters that really matters-when the media has lost interest and the last volunteer has handed out a final blanket, and people are left to repair their lives. What happens is a stark expression of how unjustly unequal our world has become. The elite make out well-whether they belong to an open market capitalist democracy or a closed authoritarian socialist state. In Myanmar-a country ruled by a xenophobic military junta-the generals and their cronies declared areas where rice farms were destroyed by Cyclone Nargis as blighted and simply took the land. In New Orleans the city was re-shaped and gentrified post Katrina, making it almost impossible for many of its poorest, mostly black citizens to return. In The Disaster Profiteers, John Mutter argues that when no one is looking, disasters become a means by which the elite prosper at the expense of the poor. As the specter of increasingly frequent and destructive natural disasters looms in our future, this book will ignite an essential conversation about what we can do now to create a safer, more just world for us all.
Download or read book Powers of the Real written by Diane Wei Lewis and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-03-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Powers of the Real analyzes the cultural politics of cinema’s persuasive sensory realism in interwar Japan. Examining cultural criticism, art, news media, literature, and film, Diane Wei Lewis shows how representations of women and signifiers of femininity were used to characterize new forms of pleasure and fantasy enabled by consumer culture and technological media. Drawing on a rich variety of sources, she analyzes the role that images of women played in articulating the new expressions of identity, behavior, and affiliation produced by cinema and consumer capitalism. In the process, Lewis traces new discourses on the technological mediation of emotion to the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake and postquake mass media boom. The earthquake transformed the Japanese film industry and lent urgency to debates surrounding cinema’s ability to reach a mass audience and shape public sentiment, while the rise of consumer culture contributed to alarm over rampant materialism and “feminization.” Demonstrating how ideas about emotion and sexual difference played a crucial role in popular discourse on cinema’s reach and its sensory-affective powers, Powers of the Real offers new perspectives on media history, the commodification of intimacy and emotion, film realism, and gender politics in the “age of the mass society” in Japan.
